Texas, how could you?

So, last week, an old roommate e-mailed me about a new gluten-free beer a Catalonian friend had made him try, and it actually wasn't half-bad. Well, when I asked him the name of the beer, I got increasingly excited. You see, Estrella Damm Daura is a special kind of beer. They actually make their beer with barley, but they use a special procedure to remove the gluten before the brewing process. The result is a product with less than 6 PPM (parts per million) gluten with the official label of "best gluten-free beer in the world".

So, naturally, I started a frantic search for the beer after my roommate e-mailed me. If they had it in Boston, they had to have the beer in Austin. Right? Austinities love beer, and they love their gluten-free diets. Well, I scrambled around, hitting up two different Whole Foods, two Specs, and a variety of other locales to no success. Finally, I decided to e-mail Daura itself to ask about the availability of Estrella in Texas. Unfortunately, this is what I got back:

Hi John,

Thanks for your interest in DAURA. Unfortunately, due to labeling laws DAURA in not available in Texas. Bummer, we know. Should that change, I will reach out and let you know ASAP.

Many thanks,

Stacie

In conclusion, Texas just became a lot more lame. Fortunately for me, I will be hitting up Boulder, Colorado soon where I know they have Daura. And it will be a joyous day. A joyous day indeed.

Update: Daura is available in Virginia as well! I now have new inspiration to visit my fiancée in Williamsburg!

Second Update: Apparently, the specific law prohibiting the sale of Daura in the state of Texas is the following: any beer with more than 4% alcohol per weight (about 5.1% alcohol per volume) must be labeled as an ale, not as a beer. This is one of the more severely stupid laws I have heard of. Apparently, there has been some talk in the legislature regarding overturning this law, but no luck yet. For more on this, check out this blog entry.

Running is a contact sport.

I really need to buy a headlamp for when I run at night. Sheesh.

Erik Demaine and His Cubes

Last August, a team of international researchers were finally able to show any position of a $3 \times 3 \times 3$ Rubik's Cube could be solved in 20 moves or less. Well, Erik Demaine, an associate professor at MIT, has upped the ante, proving that a general $n \times n \times n$ Rubik's cube can be unriddled in $O(n^2/log(n))$ moves. I actually had the chance to meet Erik Demaine four years ago at the 2007 DOE CSGF annual conference, where he gave a very interesting talk on his work in computational origami. Yes, you read that correctly, computational origami. Who said mathematics couldn't be fun? Well, it turns out that computational origami has a number of real-world applications as well, from sheet-metal manufacturing to protein folding. Anyways, if you are interested, I recommend checking out some of Erik's work - it brings a breath of fresh air to a field that can be altogether too stiff.

A Triumphant Return to the Blogosphere

I know I have been quiet for the last month, so I decided to give you an update on my life via photo blog.  A pat on the back for anyone who can identity all of the objects/places/etc. appearing in the pictures.